Quantifying the Scientific Potential of Intermediate and Extreme Mass Ratio Inspirals with the Laser Interferometer Space Antenna

TL;DR

This study assesses LISA's capability to detect and analyze intermediate and extreme mass ratio inspirals, highlighting their potential to probe astrophysical environments and fundamental physics with improved sensitivity over the mission duration.

Contribution

The paper introduces a relativistic pipeline to map LISA's performance across a range of masses, providing detailed predictions on detection horizons and parameter estimation for EMRIs and IMRIs.

Findings

EMRIs with $m_1=10^7 M_ ext{sun}$ and $m_2 ext{~around 1 M_ ext{sun}$ are most sensitive to instrument degradation.

IMRIs are less sensitive to degradation and can reach higher redshifts ($z ext{~up to 3}$).

Full mission duration significantly enhances detection horizons and sky localization accuracy.

Abstract

The Laser Interferometer Space Antenna (LISA) will enable precision studies of Extreme and Intermediate Mass Ratio Inspirals (EMRIs/IMRIs), providing unique probes of astrophysical environments of galactic nuclei and strong-field gravity. Using a fully relativistic pipeline across primary masses $m_1 \in [5\times10^4, 10^7]\,M_\odot$ and secondary masses $m_2 \in [1, 10^4]\,M_\odot$, we map instrumental performance directly to detection horizons and parameter measurement precision. EMRIs with $m_1 = 10^7\,M_\odot$ and $m_2 \sim 1\,M_\odot$ are the most sensitive to instrument degradation, with redshift horizons at $z \sim 0.01$, while IMRIs are the least sensitive to degradation and reach redshifts $z \sim 1-3$. All prograde systems considered achieve sub-percent spin precision within three months of observation. The full 4.5-year mission increases the horizon of systems with $m_1 = 10^7\,M_\odot$ and $m_2 \sim 1\,M_\odot$ by a factor of $\sim 4$ and improves sky localization by one to two orders of magnitude reaching $ < 10\,\mathrm{deg}^2$. IMRI detection is robust against degradation, but their parameter estimation is more vulnerable due to fewer cycles in band. With the full baseline, EMRI observations constrain scalar dipole emission and Kerr quadrupole deviations below ground-based bounds by one to two orders of magnitude. We release the accompanying software and an interactive website to enable the community to rapidly quantify the scientific potential of EMRIs and IMRIs.